Automated solutions for distribution feeders

As computers and other electronic equipment become the mainstay of today's businesses, customer awareness and intolerance for power system outages continues to heighten. For these customers, it is important that utilities be able to offer complete solutions to meet their needs. Depending on the customer load requirements, standby generation, uninterruptible power supply, or automatic restoration are possible solutions to improve the system reliability. In addition, utilities are becoming increasingly automated to keep up with the demands of the new business environments. As newly reregulated distribution companies emerge, it is likely that reliability indexes will be one of the key factors for regulators to examine to determine the overall performance of the distribution company. Thus, drivers for distribution automation include: remote control and restoration; targeted regions or customers for improved reliability and operation; performance based rates (PBR); and safety issues for circuit isolation. Whatever the driver for feeder automation, several key issues must be addressed: what automation scheme is required? How are communications implemented? This article addresses these issues with example solutions for overhead feeder automation.